Tracking Call Center Metrics with Third-Party Apps in Salesforce

When you have your call center up and running, and you’re using Salesforce Service Cloud or even just case management (which comes with Sales Cloud), you should be thinking about ways to consistently improve the experience for both your customers and your call center reps. Salesforce helps you to continually build, improve, and enhance the tools you use to help your customers. However, as unique as your company is, it’s very likely that you’re facing the same problem or enhancement request as many others out in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Look to the community at large — the Salesforce AppExchange, ahem — for apps that have already been built and could be repurposed by your organization. This could save you a lot of time and money down the road. Many of these apps are free and take only a few minutes to install. You can test them out yourself and give other users access to them when you’re ready.

More specifically, call centers rely on metrics used to measure performance and efficiency. Even though you likely have dozens of effective reports and dashboards to monitor what you deem most important, be sure to check out the AppExchange to find even more.

Use the top search bar at the AppExchange to find custom apps or components based on keywords. Alternatively, browse to see the many apps and options that exist using the sidebar filters. You can also sort by category, industry, or what’s popular or free.

When you click the app you’re interested in, you’ll find detailed information, such as the following:

A demo video: An embedded YouTube video demoing app functionality.

Data sheets and whitepapers: Associated marketing content to get a good overview of the product.

Customer reviews and ratings: See what others have to say about the app before making a decision to make sure it’s right for you.

Package details and components: From a more technical perspective, see exactly what you’d be getting and downloading to prevent potential configuration overlap.

System requirements: See the Salesforce editions supported and the system requirements to ensure everything is compatible.

Test drive: Some apps allow you to test-drive the app and actually play around with a limited version of it in an org.

The AppExchange has some great apps to measure your call center. For example, let’s say you really wish Service Cloud would come standard with a field that calculates your case’s age in business hours. Worry not — there’s an app for that — and it’s free: Case Age in Business Hours.

If you’re using a knowledge base, download and install the Knowledge Base Dashboards & Reports app. It’s free, takes a few minutes to install, and provides a host of excellent canned reports for Knowledge to save you lots of time. The same goes for the Service & Support Dashboards app. You can save hours of work and get started from day one with meaningful analytics.

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